Mathews hopes for better performance by Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews was confident that his team will come up with a much improved performance against the touring South African team after a poor show in crunch games against India in both the Champions trophy and the Tri Series in West Indies.Mathews expressed these views at the press conference held at the picturesque Cinnamon Lake Side hotel yesterday.

“We disappointed the whole country during the last two series and its really frustrating not to win a crunch game “ said Mathews.”I want to win every game I play so we have to play as a team to improve and be more consistent”.

Mathews who is banned for the first two ODIs of the series due to poor over rates also mentioned that the selectors will meet tomorrow and decide on a captain.

Sri Lanka’s vice captain Dinesh Chandimal who has been in poor form,struggling to find his timing even after a two month training session by foregoing the IPL 2013 is the obvious choice for captaincy but his woeful run in recent times will provide the selectors with a dilemma.”Chandimal is a talented player,but has struggled in the last few series and we all hope that he will succeed” said Mathews.

Mathews also mentioned that the senior players of the side were best performers in the last two series so the youngsters definitely have to improve and be more consistent with their performances for the team.

South African captain AB De Villiers was of the view that his team won’t be missing his star players including the likes of pace spearhead Dale Steyn,star all rounder Jacques Kallis and ex skipper Greame Smith.”This isn’t a crunch series so we like to give opportunities to our youngsters in these types of tours so that they will have enough experience in a high profile tournament like the World Cup 2015.”

De Villiers also expressed his disappointment over the cancellation of the test series but said that it would be an opportunity to give some rest for his key players so they will be rearing to go all out in a test series and ICC tournaments.